[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 133 (Saturday, August 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4066-S4068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    INFLATION REDUCTION ACT OF 2022

  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, last year, Democrats in this body 
passed a party-line spending bill, and they spent us into record-high 
inflation. Ever since then, this has been nothing but bad news for the 
working families of this country.
  We have seen the worst inflation in 40 years. Prices have gone up 
faster than wages month after month after month. Fifteen months in a 
row now, prices are up faster than wages.
  Now, Democrats' inflation has caused a recession. As a result, 
working families are finding it much harder to get by. They can't keep 
up. The average family can afford less today than they could the day 
that Joe Biden took office--much less. The savings rate hasn't been 
this low since the great recession. People are having to spend their 
savings. Credit card debt is at an alltime high.
  But the worst gut punch is about to happen right now, making all the 
pain the Americans have suffered now extend for a longer period of 
time. If Democrats pass this bill that is on the floor today, this 
inflation crisis is going to get worse.
  For weeks, there have been rumors that Democrats were working hidden 
behind closed doors on another reckless tax-and-spending bill. The 
American people knew it would be bad, and the bill that we are looking 
at now is worse than expected.
  Of course, the Democrats wrote it in secret. They didn't want the 
American people to know what was inside it. Now, here we are, late on a 
Saturday afternoon, and the Democrats are trying to cram it through 
before people even get to read it. Members of my party were wanting to 
read it earlier today. It wasn't even available, likely because it 
wasn't even written yet.
  I understand it is over 700 pages long. An earlier version, I saw 725 
pages, with a cost of over a billion dollars a page.
  Democrats call it their bill that they intend to try to use to reduce 
inflation. But the more likelihood is that it will lead to double-digit 
inflation. Haven't seen that since Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
  The Wharton School of Business does a budget model. It says that this 
bill, from everything that they have read so far, will actually 
increase inflation for the next 2 years. It is bad enough for the 
American people today. They can't put up with it for another 2 years.
  Now, I am told that the Wharton analysis is usually the economic 
analysis that the Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, uses. Well, 
I hope that Senator Manchin and every Member of this body pays 
attention to that Wharton study.
  A chorus of economists is saying the exact same thing as the experts 
are telling us from Wharton. There is a nonpartisan group called the 
Tax Foundation, and it says ``this bill may actually worsen 
inflation''--worsen inflation. That is why I say we are looking at the 
possibility of double-digit inflation. It is 9.1 percent now.
  Democrats' favorite economist, Mark Zandi, says that the bill would 
almost have no effect on inflation. How is it going to lower inflation 
if it has no effect on inflation? And that is from a favorite of the 
Democrats.
  The Congressional Budget Office says the bill would have a negligible 
effect on inflation. Clearly, there is broad agreement among experts 
that the bill will not lower inflation.
  Democrats were warned the last time, March of 2021. Democrats are 
being warned again this time. And they

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are ignoring the warnings. But it doesn't take an economist to tell you 
that this bill would be a disaster for working families.
  The bill is going to mean more taxes, more spending, higher prices--
right in the middle of the combination of an inflation time and a time 
of recession.
  The cost, the burdens, of this bill are going to be borne by the 
working families of this country.
  Now, this bill is going to hit working families from all sides. 
First, let's take a look at the taxes. Tax revenues were already at 
record highs in this country--not enough for the Democrats but record 
alltime highs of tax revenue.
  Democrats want more--a lot more. The Democrats' inflation bill would 
increase taxes by nearly half a trillion dollars. Now, this includes a 
blatant violation of Joe Biden's campaign promise when he said he 
wouldn't raise taxes on middle-class families.
  The Joint Tax Committee says that this bill will raise taxes on the 
very people that Joe Biden said he wasn't going to come after. The 
Joint Tax Committee actually said the bill will raise taxes on people 
at nearly every level of income. It will affect you, every one of you, 
all across this country.
  Now, Democrats, of course, want to raise taxes on American energy. It 
has been their claim since day one when Joe Biden basically put the 
target on the back of American energy and pulled the trigger. And, 
amazingly, they want to do it in the middle of an energy crisis.
  Remember, this is the energy crisis that the Democrats have created. 
When Joe Biden declared war on American energy, American families 
started paying the price and have been paying the price ever since 
then.
  The bill does nothing to open up exploration for energy and American 
oil on American properties on Federal lands. No. It includes a new tax 
on American oil and gas production. This tax alone will raise the cost 
of energy for half of the households in America.
  Now, this is at a time when one-third of the inflation in this 
country is driven by the cost of energy. When you take a look at the 
cost of food, energy is a component of that. Growing food, getting food 
to market--all of those things are related to energy. That tax alone is 
going to shrink the economy and cost jobs.
  There is also a new tax on imported oil. And Joe Biden's energy 
policy has been, basically: Please send us some oil. It was his policy 
last year when he went to Glasgow. And he actually asked Vladimir Putin 
to send us more oil from Russia as Russia was planning to invade 
Ukraine. He is trying to cut a deal with Iran to get Iranian oil. 
Venezuela--he sent emissaries to Venezuela asking for oil. And he went 
hat in hand last month to Saudi Arabia saying: Please send us more oil.
  And then the Democrats put in their bill an excise tax on that oil 
that the President is begging to have sent to America. And then to add 
insult to injury, they indexed the tax to inflation--high inflation 
begetting more inflation. It means the more inflation the Democrats 
cause, the higher the prices go up. More taxes, more inflation.
  This is a vicious cycle of Democrat taxes and Democrat inflation. As 
a result, the pain at the pump is going to get worse. Yet the worst 
punishment of all is for American coal production.
  Now, I am proud to say Wyoming has been America's No. 1 producer of 
coal for decades. Coal is still the most affordable, reliable energy 
known to man. It is used all over the world. Yet in this bill, the 
Democrats want to raise taxes on coal companies by up to 16 percent of 
their income.
  Well, I am from a coal State. Senator Manchin is from a coal State. 
He and I worked together on the Energy Committee. He is the chair; I am 
the ranking member. Here is what the West Virginia Coal Association has 
said about what is in this bill that we are going to be voting on 
starting tonight. Joe Manchin's home State coal association said:
       Why support anything Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Nancy 
     Pelosi, or John Kerry want for coal?
  They go on to say:
       It is incomprehensible why any miner [coal miner] would 
     support the Manchin-Schumer legislation.
  This is going to punish West Virginia directly, and it is going to 
punish the hard-working people of Wyoming. It is also going to punish 
their customers who rely on affordable energy.
  These taxes are clearly going to get passed on to the consumer--in 
other words, higher prices, more inflation. Economics 101.
  The Democrats also want to raise taxes on savings and investment at a 
time when seniors are hurting. Seniors are already watching their 
savings go down and their taxes go up. Inflation is so bad that there 
are reports that seniors are moving in together because they can't 
afford to pay the rent.
  Yet Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden want to raid their 401(k)s. This bill 
also contains a hidden tax increase. That is because the bill would 
nearly double the size of the IRS.
  Now, Democrats think that giving the IRS 80 billion additional 
dollars to hire additional auditors--tens of thousands, over 80,000 
more auditors at the IRS, an army of auditors--that they are going to 
be able to squeeze another $200 billion out of American taxpayers.
  They are not talking about a couple of rich people here. Eighty-six 
thousand auditors aren't needed to go after a couple of billionaires. 
They are going after mainstream America. They are going after families, 
farmers, after small businesses.
  The IRS is already one of the most powerful and unaccountable 
bureaucracies in the Federal Government. But the Democrats say: Not 
enough. We want to put you on steroids so you can squeeze more money 
out of the families of this country.
  The Joint Tax Committee says almost all of the money raised by 
supersizing the IRS would come from those making less than $200,000 a 
year. That is the Joint Tax Committee.
  So the billionaires in San Francisco and Manhattan who run the 
Democrat Party, they are going to be just fine. It is working families 
who always foot the bill for liberal policies.
  So what are Democrats going to do with half a trillion in new taxes? 
Well, they want to do what they do best: give taxpayer dollars to their 
closest friends and their biggest political contributors. That includes 
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for the big 
fans of the Green New Deal.
  The bill puts American taxpayers on the hook for more than $315 
billion in green energy loan guarantees. This will be billions and 
billions for projects like Solyndra that went bankrupt when President 
Obama was in the office and Joe Biden was Vice President. You would 
have thought Joe Biden had learned those lessons from the horror 
stories of the money being lost, the taxpayer dollars wasted in 
projects that went bankrupt one after another after another.
  The bill would give billions and billions for rich people to buy 
electric vehicles. Unlike other vehicles, electric vehicles, they pay 
no gas tax, which is how, of course, in this country that we pay for 
the roads and the bridges and the highways. Democrats want to cut them 
a big check as well. This is welfare for the wealthy.
  The bill also includes supersized ObamaCare subsidies for people 
making well over $100,000 a year. It is also welfare for the wealthy--
supersized subsidies on steroids.
  Now, the subsidies were put in place at the beginning of the 
pandemic. They were supposed to be temporary. Yet Democrats seem to 
want them to continue forever. If Democrats extend these subsidies 
permanently, this bill would not actually help at all with the deficit. 
It would clearly add to the national debt.
  In other words, Democrats are using the same sleight-of-hand 
accounting gimmicks that they tried last year. Nine months ago, when 
Democrats tried things like this in their Build Back Better Plan that 
failed, even Senator Manchin admitted that it was ``smoke and 
mirrors,'' a shell game, and budget gimmicks.
  The Democrats are back to their old tricks right now. Here we are, 9 
months later. The difference is, inflation is a lot, lot higher. The 
pain people have gone through is felt more deeply.
  Not a single Republican is going to vote for this monstrosity. No 
Democrat should either. Joe Biden's economy is already the worst 
economy that most Americans have ever experienced in their lifetime.
  If Democrats pass this bill, it is going to get worse. And so I urge 
my colleagues, don't inflict this kind of pain

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on the American people in the middle of a recession. The American 
people are hurting enough.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

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